![\"Christmas](\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/american-kestrel-christmas-day-male-mia-mcpherson-3425.jpg\" "\\"Christmas")
Christmas Day American Kestrel \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2000, ISO 500, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light, not baited<\/span><\/p>\nI adore American Kestrels and I was especially thrilled to have this handsome male in my viewfinder two years ago. He was a very cooperative bird.<\/p>\n
I feel that I should mention that the background was the sky and that the slightly odd color was caused by Utah’s infamous winter inversion<\/span><\/a>. Note: That means the pollutants were trapped in the valley and we were all breathing that crap in, including the birds.<\/p>\n Yesterday afternoon the sun broke through the gray clouds that have plagued the Salt Lake Valley for days on end. I headed down the hill to take a walk and stretch my legs because I have been feeling cooped up due to the bad weather. As I walked around my neighborhood pond I had wonderful views of the hazy Wasatch Mountains Range and the clouds that hung over the peaks. I couldn’t resist taking a few Christmas Eve photos of the mountains lit up by the slowly setting sun. It might be the last sunshine I see until the New Year if<\/em> the long range forecast is accurate.<\/p>\n It felt wonderful to stretch my legs and get a little bit of exercise in yesterday.<\/p>\n Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n Mia<\/p>\n Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my American Kestrel photos plus facts and information about this species. Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Utah landscape photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I photographed this Christmas Day American Kestrel in 2020 at Farmington Bay WMA. That Christmas Day was bright and sunny, today isn’t going to be at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[152,27,1022,697,709,26,773],"tags":[4004,6676,155,4525,2038,4101,4199,4078,4279,5632,2059,10716,4062,4094,4069,6910,4104,4018,4050,1164,4176,4095,373,13570,8917],"class_list":["post-108991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrel","category-avian","category-davis-county-utah","category-farmington-bay-wma","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","category-wasatch-mountains","tag-adult","tag-afternoon","tag-american-kestrel","tag-christmas-day","tag-christmas-eve","tag-clouds","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-falcon","tag-falcons","tag-falcons-of-utah","tag-haze","tag-hazy","tag-male","tag-marsh","tag-mountains","tag-peaks","tag-perched","tag-sky","tag-snow","tag-wasatch-mountain-range","tag-wasatch-mountains","tag-wetlands","tag-winter","tag-winter-inversion","tag-wooden-post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"Hazy](\"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/wasatch-mountains-christmas-eve-sunshine-mia-mcpherson-6655.jpg\" "\\"Hazy")
Hazy Wasatch Mountain Range on Christmas Eve afternoon \u2013 Nikon D500, f10, 1\/1000, ISO 640, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 140mm, natural light<\/span><\/p>\nMerry Christmas!<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n